SoCal housing prices continue rebound

Southern California housing prices and sales rose in July, continuing a rebound from the lows of a few months ago, MDA DataQuick reported Tuesday.

The regional median was $268,000, up $3,000 from June, in the third consecutive month-to-month gain. It was still 23 percent below the year-ago level of $348,000 and 46.9 percent below the peak of $505,000 set in mid-2007.

Sales in the six-county region totaled 24,104, up from 23,262 in June and 18.6 percent higher than in July 2008. The sales pace was roughly halfway between the low of 16,225 in July 1995 and peak of 38,996 in 2003 for the 21 years of DataQuick record keeping.

As reported Monday, San Diego County's median in July stood at $320,000, up from $316,250 in June but still below July 2008's $364,000. County sales last month were 3,809, 11 percent ahead of the year-ago pace.

“Even if we are or near bottom,” DataQuick President John Walsh said, “history suggests we could bounce along that bottom for quite a while.”

The percentage of single-family resale houses sold above $500,000 in Southern California represented 20.1 percent of all resale house transactions, compared with a low this year of 15 percent. San Diego's percentage was 27.9 percent.

Resales in July that had gone through foreclosure in the previous 12 months represented 43.4 percent of all Southern California resale transactions. For San Diego, the foreclosure count represented 37.4 percent.

DataQuick said investors and absentee buyers bought 19.4 percent of homes last month, up from 15.5 percent a year ago and the roughly 15 percent average for the decade. San Diego investor and absentee purchases represented 21.2 percent of the county total.

DataQuick analyst Andrew LePage said anecdotal evidence suggests that many of these buyers are new to real estate investing, having lost faith in stocks and bonds, and may underestimate the carrying costs of owning a rental house when the property is vacant and no rent is being collected.

Lending characteristics in July showed that 37.2 percent of home purchases regionally were FHA-insured, up from 36.9 percent in June and 19.7 percent a year ago – a continuing sign that government-backed mortgages are backstopping banks reluctant to write mortgages without such guarantees.